Hey question: did you ever play Gothic 3? If so, what did you think? Personally, here in the states, it's probably one of the most underrated RPG's of all time, at least IMHO.

I have not but I might check it out. I love discovering good old RPGs. I see it's also on Steam. Do you need to understand a bit about 1 and 2 to get the whole plot?

Not really. Here's the #1 thing I love about it: there's no interior or exterior, it's all one map. The combat is different too in that with sufficient skill you can make up for a lack levels. It's kinda old now, but it came out as a competitor to Oblivion, and in many ways I think it's overall superior to Oblivion._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

And that article doesn't cover the half of it. Since board foot was invented to describe how much lumber a mill could get in a pre-computerized age, there are about a dozen different equations for going from traditional board foot measurements to actual mill output at differing rates of efficiency for different stem forms.

Smart money these days is using cubic volume, but board foot just refuses to fucking die._________________The older I get, the more certain I become of one thing. True and abiding cynicism is simply a form of cowardice.

But these days, doesn't pretty much every other measurement define itself by reference to the metric system? So really, that's just one standard plus a whole bunch of ways of dividing it up in arbitrary fractions...

The troy ounce is 480 grains, compared with the avoirdupois ounce, which is 437½ grains. Both systems use the same grain defined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 as exactly 0.06479891 gram

Quote:

Since the implementation of the international yard and pound agreement of 1 July 1959, the grain or troy grain (Symbol: gr) measure has been defined in terms of units of mass in the International System of Units as precisely 64.79891 milligrams

Quote:

The current British Standard for metallic materials such as wire and sheet is BS 6722:1986, which is a solely metric standard.

...and the other stuff looks like it relies ultimately on metric measurements as well, though without handy short quotable bits...

The troy ounce is 480 grains, compared with the avoirdupois ounce, which is 437½ grains. Both systems use the same grain defined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 as exactly 0.06479891 gram

Quote:

Since the implementation of the international yard and pound agreement of 1 July 1959, the grain or troy grain (Symbol: gr) measure has been defined in terms of units of mass in the International System of Units as precisely 64.79891 milligrams

Quote:

The current British Standard for metallic materials such as wire and sheet is BS 6722:1986, which is a solely metric standard.

...and the other stuff looks like it relies ultimately on metric measurements as well, though without handy short quotable bits...

No, on all counts, re-read again. Everything you listed is just the conversion amounts. The metric system uses a base 10 system, so if it's "metric based" it should be a nice round number. Take the wire:

Quote:

The basis of the system is the mil, or 0.001 in. No. 7/0, the largest size, is 0.50 in. (500 mils or 12.7 mm) in diameter, and the smallest, No. 50, is 0.001 in. (1 mil or about 25 µm) in diameter. Between each gauge, the weight diminishes by approximately 20%. Because the weight per unit length is related to the area, and therefore the square of the diameter, the diameter diminishes by approximately 10.6%:

Nothing to do with the metric system.

Now look at bullet grain:

Quote:

Both systems use the same grain defined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 as exactly 0.06479891 gram

Again, the emboldened part is the conversion to metric, if it was metric it wouldn't be an atrocious decimal like 0.06479891, 1 grain would be 0.01 or 0.1 or .001, something like that._________________...if a single leaf holds the eye, it will be as if the remaining leaves were not there.http://about.me/omardrake

Divinity Original Sin is looking really good. Still a bit miffed I have to play a white chick with red hair no matter what but at least the armor looks really decent and there's plenty of class choice. I also love the choice in argument system.

Currently you can buy it on Steam. It's pre-alpha really but you'll get the rest of the game as it goes along. Nice for people who want to help it financially. I kind of want to know how long I need to wait for the full thing.

Does anyone have a browser game I can try during lunch breaks? I've completely done Candy Box 1 and 2, A Dark Room and Cookie Clicker. Preferably something I can leave on a whim if my colleagues need me._________________www.cobrasphinx.nl

The metric system uses a base 10 system, so if it's "metric based" it should be a nice round number. Take the wire:

Quote:
The basis of the system is the mil, or 0.001 in. No. 7/0, the largest size, is 0.50 in. (500 mils or 12.7 mm) in diameter, and the smallest, No. 50, is 0.001 in. (1 mil or about 25 µm) in diameter. Between each gauge, the weight diminishes by approximately 20%. Because the weight per unit length is related to the area, and therefore the square of the diameter, the diameter diminishes by approximately 10.6%:

Nothing to do with the metric system.

Now look at bullet grain:

Quote:
Both systems use the same grain defined by the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 as exactly 0.06479891 gram

Again, the emboldened part is the conversion to metric, if it was metric it wouldn't be an atrocious decimal like 0.06479891, 1 grain would be 0.01 or 0.1 or .001, something like that.

Nope, "nice round numbers", either at the value the measure is pegged to the metric system at, or the amounts at which one unit is aggregated into another, have nothing to do with it. The key point is that they're tied, by definition, to the metric system - at 25.4mm or 64.79891 grams or whatever appropriate point.

And the key test here is that when the metric system is updated, usually because of more precise systems of measurement or trying to redefine things relative to universal constants, these changes will cascade through to other weights/measures/whatever, which are pegged to them at specific values.

For instance, there's a couple of projects going on right now to redefine the kilogram in a manner that's more accurate and that doesn't alter over time (the various reference kilo weights have historically been problematic), so there's one kind of incremental-improvement project that's looking to better measure a more resilient reference weight, and another charmingly bonkers (yet scientifically valid) project where they're looking to define the kilogram by making a reference weight that's a sphere of pure silicon and then counting the atoms (defining Avogadro's Number on the way, which I think is awesome). So when these projects complete, and ideally agree, there'll be a new reference point for the kilo, using the international system for maintaining accurate weights and measures... and this will feed through into the grain, which will remain defined as 64.79891 grams. So the gram will probably have changed slightly, and the grain will change as a result...